I'm scheduled to take a Java Certification Exam tomorrow, so I'm up late studying such thrilling topics as RandomAccessFile invocation parameters and how to instantiate Threads.

While on the subject of 'boring', here's the report from Sunday's game. I continue my offensive onslaught from fullback:

We had the better of the 1st half and scored after a knockdown from Gimson was chested into the goal by Mark S. A fairly even 2nd half in possession but we had many chances to bury them with at least 4-5 clear cut chances. They equalised when a free kick was chipped into the path of their nippy stirker to slot it pass me. After a series of disgracful finishing from us , we won it with the last kick of the game when Kelvin chipped the out-rushing keeper from outside the box.

Next week I'm going to try to score with my hips or butt.

Another thing we're looking forward to doing after we move is taking some classes. Like many of the things on our other this, this isn't necessarily something we're prevented from doing here; it's just that with a new beginning and (hopefully) more money, it seems more possible. And it's also a good way to meet people.

I plan on continuing Japanese, and maybe doing some writing workshops. Marjorie wants more Spanish and photography. Together we may do cooking and scuba diving. Oh, and dog obedience, of course.

We took a vow the other night to never again go six months without taking some sort of class that interests us. Unlike my nail biting/neck cracking vow, let's hope we can stick by this one.

On another note, go see Shrek 2. Side-splittingly funny.

Three cheers. Another forum I'm on has a thread going about remarkable experiences. Here's what I posted:

This is the first thing that came to mind as a "remarkable experience". It was just something I was lucky enough to witness.

I was working at Kennedy Space Center -- must've been about 1992 -- and had seen my share of shuttle (and rocket) launches. Landings, however, had always been done out in California at Edwards Air Force Base. They had built a landing strip at KSC, but had yet to use it, except for landing the special airliner that carries the shuttle back from California.

On a day when the shuttle was scheduled to land in Edwards, I was at work as usual. Word started spreading around the building that, due to a weather pattern approaching California, they were going to land the shuttle, that day, right outside our building!

Everyone filed out at the appropriate time, and waiting in the parking lot that was pretty much right across the street from the landing strip. The funny thing was, no one knew which way to look. We knew it would be coming from the west, but also that it would have to circle a few times to lose speed. So eyes were pointed in every direction.

Finally, someone spotted it, directly overhead, so high up that you could barely see it. Everyone cheered, for the first time of three. We watched it begin to bank into its turn.

Two minutes or so later, the double sonic boom hit us -- BOOM! BOOM! Car alarms went off, and everyone cheered again. It pulled a descending curve over our parking lot, and we could begin to see details on the shuttle itself, as its jet fighter escorts pulled up alongside.

But to everyone's dismay, just before it was to do its final, unimaginably steep descent towards the landing strip, it disappeared behind a cloud bank. We were going to miss the landing! It was hard to tell just how thick the clouds were, and where they stopped. Finally, just as the shuttle was leveling off from its descent, it burst MAJESTICALLY out of its cloud bank, almost directly towards us, and everyone went nuts cheering, one more time! Not that the astronauts could possibly hear us; it was just an unbridled outburst of joy amongst a bunch of space geeks. Finally it dipped below the trees across the road and made its landing. We all went back to work with big stupid grins on our faces.

Yeah, we watch, so what? We've both decided that if Fantasia gets voted off American Idol, we're never watching the show again. The girl's got some pipes.

Singapore Idol starts in two weeks or so. I'm all aquiver. No, really, it's going to be the biggest thing here, ever. I think it will be a hoot, in a train-wreck sort of way. A friend describes Singapore as the worst music town on the planet, and it's hard to argue. But they do love their karaoke, and that's right up Idol's alley. People are already camping out for the audition, I think.

Things we can't wait to buy, own, or otherwise acquire once we move:

Washer and DRYER.

Big refrigerator.

Car.

Dog.

NEW CLOTHES.

Comfy computer chair.

Comfy matress.

High quality sheets and comforter.

MORE CLOTHES.

Coffee maker.

Cookbooks.

Kitchen appliances.

Art.

Magazine subscriptions.

TIVO or its equivalent.

All our stuff from Atlanta.

Their food is to die for. Our favorite Thai restaurant, Diandin Leluk, is unfortunately situated in the Golden Mile complex.

Two weeks ago, the highway behind it collapsed, forcing evacuation of the building.

Today, it was evacuated again -- for supposedly unrelated reasons -- after the building started shaking due to an earthquake across the water in Sumatra. No one else in town seemed to feel a thing, myself included.

One might never want to go near the place again. But only if one hadn't ever tried their green curry soup.

Serves us right. I only knew fifteen minutes beforehand. Marjorie knew all along, but figured if it was a Kevin Smith movie, it couldn't be all bad. The point is, we both knew going in to see Jersey Girl that it starred Ben Affleck, and we went anyway. We got what we deserved.

I've always had issues with how a certain word can be consided obscene,
while another word which means the exact same thing is considered acceptable.
Most times, it's just due to an accident of history, and it makes no sense to
me at all.

Why, then, did I blush for the Singapore newscasters the other day when,
while introducing a story about the tenth anniversary of Viagra being
available in Singapore, they put up a graphic reading "Helping Singaporean
men get it up for ten years"? And then, a second later, when the reporter
started the story with "Are you hard up without a hard on?"

Itig. Back in high school there were two girls -- Tia and Mary -- who had invented their own language. It was much like piglatin in that it was just a bastardization of English, one that could be both spoken and understood, once you knew the trick. It sounded really strange, but they were able to hold conversations out loud without anyone understanding.

One day I got them to tell me the trick to it. Unlike piglatin, which only operates on a single word, they mangled every syllable. The trick was to essentially put two unstressed syllables -- "itig" -- in front of every vowel sound. So the word "word" would become "witigord". "Sound" would become "sitigound". It chains together for multiple syllables -- "teacher" would become "titigeach-itiger".

It sounds hard, but it's pretty straightforward. I quickly got to the point where I could speak it as fast as they could. I find I still can, pretty much. What's weird is that, even though I could encode it fast in my head, I could never really decode it that fast. And my sister, who was also privvy to the trick, could understand it easily when others spoke it but couldn't speak it very good (if I remember correctly).

I just remembered this recently. I don't know why I'm blogging about it, except that it strikes me as interesting.

Senescence. Not that I can possibly make it, but it's been pointed out to me that my twenty year high-school reunion is next month. Twenty years! Next month!

Life seems damnably short sometimes.

I don't feel much different than I remember myself at high school graduation. I did have a sense of immortality at that age that I miss now, though. That I was always going to be that age, with no overhanging sense of urgency about anything other than enjoying life.

At one point I considered going to work for one of the few companies that are working on life extension (such as these guys). But I looked into it, and don't see much to hope for beyond some modest gains in our lifetime. It would still be interesting to work on, but there are things I enjoy more. I'll still be first in line if they manage to bottle it, though.

Found out last night that my new favorite writer, Greg Egan, is Australian. He's a left-coaster, though, so I don't think I'll be hounding him for book signings after we move. Check out his web site, the very fine story of his that I read last night, and a worthy cause he campaigns for.

I don't need to read any more of his stuff while I'm working on my own, though. It's kind of disheartening, how good he is. He writes as if he lives inside the worlds that he creates, and his characters are real people, not the cardboard understudies so common to SF.

Ways to save money in anticipation of a move:

1. Place moratorium on buying new clothes, CDs, housewares. Status: Grudgingly implemented.

2. Get a library card instead of blowing wads of cash down at Borders. Status: Implemented (Mark).

3. Sell back old books to used book store. Status: Marjorie doing first load today.

4. Fill suitcases with housewares during exploratory trip to new destination; trek said goods deep into woods, and cover with plastic tarp. Recover after doing actual move. This saves greatly on shipping and storage expenses. A GPS is recommended. Status: Vetoed by Marjorie.

5. Lunch: hawker center $3 noodles instead of $15 restaurant entree. Status: Implemented (Mark).

6. Switch to Tiger beer, the local brew whose flavor can best be described as "formaldehydy". Status: Grudgingly implemented (Mark).

7. When flying down for actual move, wear three pairs of trousers, five shirts, three pair of socks, to save suitcase space. Status: Can't speak for Marjorie, but I plan to do this.

Oh, my nose! I had been getting so many scoring chances from the back line that the coach today moved me up to center half, late in the game. I lasted only ten minutes before going nose-to-head with an opposing player. I thought I was okay until I looked down and my hands were covered in blood. I thought it was just a bloody nose, but when I got home it looked like my nose was crooked, so we trundled off to the ER. They didn't say much, except that they usually give these things a chance to heal on their own; they don't reset until a week has gone by. I'm supposed to get it x-rayed tomorrow, but now that the swelling is down, it looks straight again. Still, very sore.

We moved around a fair amount when I was a kid, and I was always the first one that ended up having to go to the hospital, for whatever reason. We've been here a year and a half, and I've been three times now.

News. Moving. July. Australia. Melbourne, probably. Sydney, maybe. Woop.

Perfectionism. I read an essay today that struck a chord with me and my current efforts to write. It was about silencing your inner critic, and had particularly harsh things to say about being a perfectionist. I had always taken a sort of pride in my perfectionism, when perhaps I should have seen it for what it is: a voice that always says that the things I do aren't good enough. Not a desire for excellence, but rather an impediment to progress.

You know, now that I read that, it sounds like a load of self-help shinola. It's possible that that perfectionism can become debilitating, I suppose, but there's nothing wrong in general with wanting to create something good. I've still become fairly accomplished at a lot of things. Never mind.

Bedways is rightways. Yesterday, we woke up and were sitting in bed reading. Marjorie said, "Let's just do this all day." So we did, or at least we tried. I switched over to working on my story after a point, starting (again, from scratch) the actual composing of the prose.

I couldn't make it a whole day in bed; eventually I had to run off to the library, where I finally got a library card, after my third try (long story). It's kind of cool, book checkout is all DIY these days. I checked out, among other things Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, which I'm not finding a lot of good advice in. He recommends cheats that I don't really approve of. Not surprising, as he's a writer I don't much care for (though I did like Ender's Game when I first read it; who didn't?).

Anyway, in the evening, we moved the TV into the bedroom so we could watch DVDs from bed -- Curb Your Enthusiasm, Mr. Show, and Larry Sanders.

There should be a National Stay In Bed Day. Give it a go yourself. You might actually get some stuff done. You can afford one day a year.

Last night we caught our first film of the Singapore Film Festival with friends Carolyn and Mike -- the disturbing but engaging Capturing the Friedmans. Seemingly uncensored, too. Wow. We all talked about it for a half hour afterwards, which is a good sign. Next Tuesday (I think) we're seeing Osama.

Oh, and I've given up on Gmail for the present, until they include an address book that works. Bummer.

New email. From being a member of Blogger, I've been offered an early chance to set up a Google Gmail account. I'm excited. The free gig of storage is what sold me -- I hate having to delete old emails. So so long, hotmail, I hardly knew ye. I'll be sending out my new address soon. Any predictions on how long until I get my first spam?

There is a Feng Shui convention in town next month.

Can you imagine the squabbles that go on while they're setting up their booths?

In other news...

From the Gooooooooaaaaaal Dept. comes this report on Sunday's game:

PM played a lacklusture 1st half as the heat forced many to play below par. As with the AM game , it took a goal in the middle of the 2nd half to wake us up. Mark S scored a rare goal off a corner before Kelvin rounded off the comback with a scrambled goal after good work on the left.

I've been averaging about a goal every other game this year. Not too shabby!

From the Too Damn Funny Dept. comes a report on the worst records ever. What's funny is that I've been hearing the "winning" song all over town in the past month, for some reason.

Writing. Six months after vowing to write a science fiction short story, I have the outline half done.

That's not as dire as it sounds. I had stopped work on it for several months. Just in the past two weeks has my interest in finishing it been rekindled, and I have the plot almost completely worked out, thanks to some heavy thinking sessions while riding mass transit. I came up with a narrative device that will let me tell the story much easier. All the pieces of the plot fit together nicely; it has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and it even has a [gasp] theme. Ninety percent of the time I'm working on it, I think it's going to turn out original and wonderful and hailed by one and all; only the other ten percent of the time do I think it's going to be crap. Which, considering my usual self-doubt on creative efforts, is amazing.

I'm starting to worry about the size of it. Maybe it'll turn out to be a novel after all, although I shudder at the thought. There's a dangerous middle ground, I've learned, where stories are too big for magazines and too small for novels. A rather large gap, in fact: between 20,000 and 40,000 words, a story is useless. I'd rather shoot for under 20,000 than over 40,000, but it seems like I have an awful lot of plot and required expository.

I've heard that fiction can be five times harder than non-fiction to write, and now I believe it. I'm still reluctant to sit down and work on it much of the time. But once I get started I get into it. Still, if I end up with 20,000 words, and get published in one of the top magazines, that would earn me a measley $1000. How do people make a living at this?

"He had yellow eyes! So, help me, God! Yellow eyes!" Yesterday's post about the chimpanzees got me thinking back to my junior high school days.

That's when bullying was at its worst for me. My compelling need to be considered the class brain certainly didn't help matters, but that was my primary source of happiness so I wasn't about to quit. Another factor was working against me; I cried very, very easily. I would've given anything to be able to control that but I couldn't. Once other kids figure that out about you, it's all over. Still, because I never fought back, I never really got beat up.

The day that stands out in particular was in the first week of class in seventh grade, which would put it at September of 1978. During the first day of REAL gym class, all the boys had to shower together, nekkid, for the very first time. We were all kind of nervous about it but got through it just fine. Standing around in the lobby outside the locker room afterwards, we were feeling pretty good ourselves.

That was when Randy and his little band of thugs came out, and started working down the line of boys, accusing them of being too chicken to get their hair wet. The wetting of the hair was, of course, not the real issue; he was just establishing his dominance. Still, I cowered in the corner of the lobby, dying for the bell to ring, and wishing to God that I had gotten my hair wet (as if would have made any difference). He worked his way past and through a couple of my friends and down to me. I can still picture him screaming up at me in his nasally voice. (Yes, up. He was a full head shorter than me, and scrawny too. It's not about size, it's about how mean you are.) I don't remember what words I used to placate him but eventually he and his entourage moved on.

You can bet that the next day, all of us who were out in the lobby made sure we got our hair nice and wet.

Somebody in the class actually stood up to him about halfway through the year. Randy jumped on him, knocked him down, and they wrestled around a bit, right there in the locker room. He escaped mostly unharmed, and was left alone for the rest of the year. I could easily recognize in this a ticket out of tormenting, but of course was too much of a chicken to try it.

Junior high is a time of great fear but also of great fun. And it's amazing how fast the needle can swing from one side to the other. The only movie I've ever seen that captures this is Welcome To The Dollhouse. I've known many people who can't even watch it, but I thought it was amazing.

Emotion, I've heard, is the trigger your brain uses to know when to store something in long-term memory. So it's no surprise that I can remember so many little details about that fearful day outside the locker room. And my mind can still drift away while pondering all the things I could have said or done.

Best lines from games night at the American Club tonight:

1. During a game involving a timekeeper --
Nora: I'm going to the bathroom. Here, Flip, you take the timer.
Flip: What was your previous record?

2. During a discussion of using phrases like "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzapies" to remember all the planets --
Marjorie: These memory tricks, what's that word for them again?

Two fascinating articles containing much insight into the human condition and the keys to happiness:

The Tyranny of Choice cites recent studies to suggest that having an abundance of options may actually be a recipe for unhappiness, and suggests some guidelines on how to best cope in a society where often there is no lack of choices. This is something we can really relate to. Unfortunately you'll have to buy the magazine to read the whole article.

No Time For Bullies: Baboons Retool Their Culture describes the changes that occur in a baboon society when all the agressive males died off due to tuberculosis they caught while fighting other tribes. Fascinating stuff.

Quitters Inc. report. A few weeks back I reported on my plans to quit cracking my neck and knuckles, as well as biting my nails.

Quitting "cold turkey" is not possible for these compulsions, I think, since I do them involuntarily, and the means to do them is close at hand. With something like smoking, you have to conciously go out and buy the cigarettes, which gives you a lot of time to think about it beforehand.

So I've been just tapering off these habits, stopping and mentally scolding myself when I find myself doing them. No snapping of rubber bands on the wrist or anything.

It's kind of working. My nails look better, at least, but I still catch myself biting fairly regularly. My neck feels all the time stiff like it wants to crack, and it's giving me headaches, so I'm still occasionally partaking of a good twist. Knuckle cracking seems to be my biggest success; although I haven't quit 100%, it's getting more difficult to actually do it, as the joints stiffen back to their normal range of flexibility.

Next thing to work on is my habit of smashing plates on my desk while singing "Lee dee dee dee dee".

We're back. Gee it's hot here.

I'm not much of a photographer, but I really like this photo I took at the wildlife park.

Melbournians are an interesting bunch. They are brash, outgoing, friendly; tall, big-boned, and barrel-chested. They say things like "How are you going?" and "Ta" for thank you; if they like something, it's always "quite nice", "brilliant", "lovely", or even "gorgeous". They really do say "no worries" a lot, but we haven't heard that many "g'day"s.

We had a brilliant excursion the other day. It was a tour we booked through Autopia, and it started at a wildlife attraction where we got to hold a baby wombat, and hand-feed kangaroos. Next we visited a coal mine in Wonthaggi, which was quite interesting. This place marked the southernmost either of us has ever been, and I think we were 60 meters underground at the time! Then it was on to Phillip Island, where we took a brief stop at a lookout point before moving on to the "penguin parade", where huge crowds of people gather every night as the penguins come up the beach after a day of fishing. It was cold, so we only watched a few dozen little waddlers before heading back to the van. It all ended with a pizza dinner, and was all in all a quite lovely brilliant gorgeous tour. Met lots of folks from all over too.

Last night we wandered into a pub that was having a lively trivia night and serving Harp (well, they were out of it). Just as we were joking that we'd found our place, they played a Pogues song. Brilliant!

Melbourne is cool. We've mainly just been exploring neighborhoods, riding around on the trams, checking out supermarkets -- all the things we need to do to evaluate this as a possible place to live. And it's passing in every regard, so far. We're staying in St. Kilda, and have also checked out the Toorak, Prahran, Carlton, and Fitzroy areas of town. Lots of really inviting little areas, and the people are outgoing and friendly. Weather's a little warmer than we'd like right now; we're jonesing for cold!

Sunday night we checked out one of the coolest clubs we've ever been to; the Esplanade Hotel here in St. Kilda. It's a gigantic place, converted from an old hotel, and had three separate rooms with different live bands.

Our motel is right next to rave club. It's a friendly place, graciously sharing their (earplug-defying) bass notes with us until the wee hours. On Saturday night it kept us up until 5am. We figured, hey, we can deal with it for one night; it's Saturday after all. And true, it was better on Sunday night; it only went on until 4am. We've switched to the other side of the hotel; hopefully it'll be better tonight.

Wildlife spotting: penguins, sulphur-crested cockatoos, magpies, magpie-larks, black swans, a flock of rainbow lorikeets, and a lot of different birds in the botanical gardens, where we went in search of flying foxes, which have been (shall we say) convinced to move to another area of town. Tomorrow we're taking an organized tour to Phillip Island to see the penguin parade, among other things.

Herbie Hancock would be proud. Okay, these dancing robots really freak me out. How cool would a pocket-sized one of these be?

Traffic. I've been doing a little reading up on Melbourne in anticipation of our trip. Long time readers of this blog will know that traffic control holds a stupid fascination with me, so I was quite interested to find that Melbourne has invented their own unique maneuver, the hook turn. Can't wait to try one. Unfortunately, we're not renting a car this trip.

Last night was the first time I ever made a cabbie pull over and let me the heck out of his cab. Not because he was driving poorly, either. It was because he was berating me. I tried ten times to tell him that I wanted to go to where Alexandra St and Pasir Panjang St meet, but he was too drunk or stupid to understand. Instead he opted to mumble insults at me for five minutes: "When you get in cab, you should know where going! You live in penthouse near there, or something? Why you waste my time?" Most of the cab drivers in this town are wonderful and entertaining, but this guy should've been reported.

It's always interesting to me what constitutes a "joke" in other cultures. My Malaysian cow orker told me a joke today, which he was told back in school. It's a bit off-color, which makes it even funnier to me, since he's really kind of straight-laced. It's sort of a joke you play on someone else, and it requires a little modification to translate into English. But, it goes something like this:

Person 1: Use the words "Bob", "Mary", "Elephant", and "fucks" to make a complete sentence, without adding any other words.
Person 2 (the victim): Hmmm... I can't seem to do it. How do you do it?
Person 1: "Bob fucks Mary."
Person 2: But what about the elephant?
Person 1: The elephant fucks you.

Eulogy. Alistair Cooke has shuffled off this mortal coil. Alistair, if you're somewhere reading this, I'm sorry I nodded off during all those documentaries of yours they played us back in elementary school. You still planted some good seeds, and you my nigga.

For your listening pleasure. Our new friend Ken lent us an amazing CD that somehow escaped our attention. Well, perhaps it's not so surprising considering this town is a musical hell-hole, but there are so many artists on this CD that we (and especially I) love that you think I would've heard of it. It's called Wig In A Box -- Songs From & Inspired By Hedwig & The Angry Inch (which we've never seen, but I'm sure we will soon). Dig this crazy track listing:

1. The Origin Of Love - Rufus Wainwright
2. Angry Inch - Sleater Kinney & Fred Schneider
3. The Long Grift - They Might Be Giants
4. Sugar Daddy - Frank Black
5. City Of Women - Robyn Hitchcock
6. Freaks - Imperial Teen
7. Wicked Little Town - The Breeders
8. Nailed - Bob Mould
9. Wig In A Box - The Polyphonic Spree
10. Milford Lake - John Cameron Mitchell & Stephen Trask
11. Ladies & Gentlemen - Stephen Colbert
12. Tear Me Down - Spoon
13. Hedwigs Lament / Exquisite Corpse - Yoko Ono & Yo La Tengo
14. Wicked Little Town - Ben Kweller W/ Ben Folds & Ben Lee
15. Midnight Radio - Cyndi Lauper & The Minus 5 [featuring Peter Buck]
16. The Origin Of Love - Jonathan Richman

The big surprise here to me is the Cyndi Lauper song. I know what you're thinking, but the girl can still belt it out! The whole album is great; there doesn't seem to be a weak track on it.

In addition to having great musical taste, Ken is also a talented artist. Check out some of his work.

Huh huh huh, customers suck. Trying to get my DVD burner working yesterday, so I contacted their online "chat"-style support. Not exactly an enlightening experience. What follows is the exact transcript (they email it to you afterwards.) My comments in brackets.

Daniel: Thank you for contacting Iomega's Online Support Services. How may I help you?
Mark: Hi... Was chatting to Vivian earlier about getting by CD-DVD burner working. He had me install your HotBurn product
Mark: It got only as far as "Writing the Lead-In area" and hung up

[Five minutes pass.]

Mark: you there?
Daniel: Yes.
Daniel: Ojne moment please.

[Ten minutes pass.]

Daniel: Which version of Iomega Hotburn software are you using?
Mark: 2.4.2
Mark: build 70
Daniel: Ok.

[Five minutes pass.]

[I write and erase several nastier versions before finally sending:]

Mark: Are you multitasking or something? I'd like some help with this.

Daniel: I apologize for the delay in my response. It was because of some system problem that I was facing.

[Ah, the dreaded "some system problem". The kind that keeps you connected to the chat servlet but also keeps you from responding. I'm sure it's not because you're playing EverQuest or anything.]

Daniel: Please let me know the complete error message you get as stated by the system.
Mark: No error message. It just hangs up when it first tries to write to the disk

[...like I said already, you prat.]

[Ten minutes pass.]

Mark: Is your system problem something I can help you with?

[Five minutes pass.]

Mark: disconnected
Daniel: disconnected

I'm going to deal with them on the phone Monday. I can't wait.

Crime free, my ass. Took the train back to the station yesterday where I had left my bike in the morning, and it was gone. Someone cut through the lock in broad daylight in the middle of a heavy pedestrian area, and in Singapore no less. I can't remember what brand it was, so I haven't reported it to the police. It was only S$35, but it was nice to have. Someone needs a caning.

Oh, and "Nice, Jim."

Tax mystery solved. I complained earlier about the Singapore tax form not having any place to fill in how much you actually owe in taxes. I called their hotline today, and found out why: you just give them the numbers, and they send a form back telling you how much you owe. Now that I think about it, it makes more sense that way.

Frustrating. Last night I spent at least an hour typing up a big long screed to post to a mailing list I'm on. When finished, I clicked "Post", and poof, it just went away. I'm usually good about backups, auto-saves, and archiving of outgoing messages so this doesn't happen. But I was typing it through a web interface this time, and now it all vanished into the mists of time.

I know I'm not the only person this has ever happened to. Why isn't there an operating-system-level feature that just records your last 10000 or so keystrokes? It could save you, regardless of your application. Something you could turn on and off, obviously, for security reasons.

My personal theory is that aliens monitor us by stealing every fiftieth email and tenth printout, which explains why some things just never make it through when you click on "send" or "print".

A little off the top, please. Inspired by the recent Foxtrot comic strips, tonight we gave ourselves virtual makeovers just for grins. It's a pretty cool program they have to do it, but a lot of hairstyle choices look unreal, and there aren't a lot of choices for dudes. Still, we may have found me a new look.

Sunday's match report from the coach. (Hey, you know I only post these things when I score! That's happening probably more than it should lately, considering I'm supposed to be playing defense. And actually, their first goal was an own goal by me that I had to redeem myself for...)

Ventz PM were caught in a mixup as our game was rained off at the last minute. We shifted fields but there was now 3 teams in 1 game! Therefore it was decided we play a half against each teams and I decided to let the other two teams play first. In the first halve/game against Poser Utd , we went down early when they broke thru to slot pass pur keeper. We took control after that and pressurised them for the equalizer. Close to the end , after much presure , Mark S cut in from the left to unleash an unstoppable shot pass the keeper.

In the 2nd half/game , over confidence and fatigue allowed our opponents to take the lead. We huffed and puffed to bring the game back and scored thru a Steven A volley from 20m at the stroke of full time!

Ah ahhhh, Mr. Heath. You'd think a one page tax form, when we have no extra income or reliefs (deductions) would be a piece of cake. But it has confounded us utterly. After big sections for listing your income and reliefs, there seems to be no place AT ALL to list how much you actually owe. The formula for computing the tax is hidden away on a separate worksheet, but what do we do with the numbers?

From what we can tell, though, we don't have a lot to complain about, amount-wise; tax rate seems VERY low here, at least comparatively.

Sure to start neighborhood fights. Been playing around with this site which lets you see which US candidate your neighbors have contributed to. You can even look people up by name. Apparently, you have to be pretty up front about contributing, because even famous people are listed (along with their addresses, which I wont post here). My comments in brackets:

Former pols:

Barbara P. Bush (Retired):
George W. Bush $2,000

Michael S. Dukakis (Professor Northeastern University):
John Kerry $2,000

Walter F Mondale (IR IR):
Bob Graham $500

Henry A. Kissinger (Chairman Kissinger Associates):
George W. Bush $1,000
George W. Bush $1,000

H. Ross Perot (President Perot Systems Corporation):
George W. Bush $2,000

Big money dudes:

George Soros (Investor SOROS FUNDS MANAGEMENT):
John Kerry $2,000
Bob Graham $2,000
Wesley Clark $2,000
Howard Dean $1,000 <-- interesting, he gets less

Donald J. Trump (President The Trump Organization):
John Kerry $2,000
George W. Bush $2,000
[That's a head-scratcher. No, I guess not. Trump just wants
to be on the winning team.]

William H. Gates (CEO Microsoft Corp.):
George W. Bush $2,000

S. ROBSON WALTON (CHAIRMAN WALMART):
George W. Bush $2,000

Big money entertainers:

Jerry Seinfeld (Entertainer Self-employed):
John Kerry $2,000
Wesley Clark $2,000

Jessica Seinfeld (his wife):
Wesley Clark $2,000

[None of the Friends cast, those rich indolent bastards.]

[None of the big shot hosts: Leno, Letterman, Oprah, Colin O'Brien, Kilby, Jon Stewart.]

Barbra Streisand (Actress/ Musician Self employed):
Howard Dean $1,000
John Kerry $1,000
John Edwards $1,000
Dick Gephardt $1,000
Al Sharpton $1,000
Bob Graham $1,000
Wesley Clark $1,000

Susan Sarandon (Actress Self employed):
Howard Dean $2,000

[Pundits: no Michael Moore, Al Franken, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ollie North, Ann Coulter.]

Stephen King (Writer Self employed):
Howard Dean $2,000

Tabitha King (writer Self employed [his wife]):
Howard Dean $2,000

Robert Deniro (Filmmaker Tribeca Productions):
Howard Dean $2,000
Dick Gephardt $2,000
Wesley Clark $2,000

Ben Affleck (["]Actor["]):
Wesley Clark $2,000

Edward Norton (Actor Self-employed):
John Kerry $2,000
Dennis Kucinich $2,000

Michael Douglas (Actor and Producer Furtler files):
Howard Dean $2,000

Meg Ryan (Information Requested):
Wesley Clark $2,000

Helen Hunt (Actress Self employed):
Howard Dean $2,000

Steven Buscemi (Information Requested):
Wesley Clark $1,000

The national and city maps are very interesting too.

Quitters Inc. I was talking to Marjorie the other day about my tendency to crack my knuckles, and my neck. I said, since I'm sharing an office, that these are probably not the most endearing qualities in an office mate. She replied, "Or a spouse."

So I hereby give them up. While I'm at it, I'll throw in biting my nails.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, it's easy to quit, I've done it hundreds of times. I actually quit nail-biting before, for a good long time, by wearing a rubber band around my wrist, and snapping it whenever I caught myself mano-a-boca. But then, five years later, I started up again. I tried the rubber band trick again a few years later, and it didn't work at all; I snapped it several times daily for a good long month, but never stopped the biting.

I generally have pretty good will power, though, so this time I'm going to quit these habits just by trying really hard, and by the old public shame method -- letting others around me know I'm trying to quit. Hence this post.

Just about the most depressing thing ever. When my job sent me to an Air Force base in Germany for a month, and then a Nato base in Italy for a month, it used to boggle my mind that there were so many people in both places that had been stationed there for years but had never ventured off the base, or learned a word of the native language. A few -- just a few -- of the military guys there shared my frustration, and these were the guys I befriended, and went out exploring with when I could.

So today I when I stumbled across this blog on Blogdex, I thought, here's a guy who feels like I do. He was even better than me at befriending locals and taking the sorts of photos that I never had the guts to take, especially given that he's stationed in Iraq. And it sounded like he was truly trying to help the locals. He's a guy I would like to hang out with if I ever found myself stationed there. I went back and read half his archive, and planned to add his blog to my list of blogs I check routinely.

Then, reading further down in Blogdex, I discovered another link that explained why his blog was rated so high in Blogdex. With a sick feeling I found that he was just killed in an ambush while making a foray out of the safe zone.

Just, so senseless.

I pieced together this panorama from Tioman Island. I'm not sure if the variations in lighting from frame to frame are the camera's fault or the weather's. We holed up in the little shacks to the left of the picture.

Monthly geek-out! Bear with me. A tenth planet has been discovered. "Sedna" is actually not really a planet, but it's the biggest thing that's been discovered since Pluto.

Someday I'm going to start a website that's all about trying to give a sense of size and scale to our universe, especially our solar system, with splashy diagrams and descriptive text. (And of course I would have to call it the Total Perspective Vortex, in honor of Douglas Adams.) In the meanwhile, here's some decidedly non-splashy graphics I whipped up that'll give you a sense of how far away this new object they've discovered is:

Se---j----s--------u----------n--------p-----------------------------------@----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------!--

where
S is the sun
e is the earth
j is jupiter
s is saturn
u is uranus
n is neptune
p is pluto (on average)
@ is Sedna, at its CLOSEST
! is Sedna, at its FURTHEST

Just how far away is that?

Have you ever seen a car with 186000 miles (300000 kilometers) on it? Imagine traveling all that distance -- every side street, vacation trip, work commute, whatever -- in a single second. That's how fast light travels. A (say) radio message traveling that fast would take over ten hours to reach Sedna at its closest point, and it would be another ten hours before you got a response. At its FURTHEST point, your message would take 117 hours (almost five days!) to reach Sedna.

Picture our moon; Sedna's about half as big, best guess. And at the distance it is out there, it's not going to be reflecting a lot of sunlight. It's amazing that they could spot this thing. The article doesn't say, but I'm sure it found near it's closest point in orbit, which it makes the rounds to every 10000 years or so. So, its last visit this close was around the time that agriculture and the bow and arrow were novel concepts.

Commericals. Some of my favorite commercials here in Singapore:

1. Two guys are looking out a hotel window, wide-eyed. They gleefully run out of the room to the elevator, then down and through the lobby (slowing down to try to appear calm when passing the reception desk) and out into the street, where it is snowing. It is obviously their first time seeing snow, and they look up to feel it on their faces, and start throwing snowballs at each other. The commercial is for Emirates (the airline out of Dubai) and features their slogan, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?" Sure, it's a feel-good commercial, but it makes me feel good.

2. Travel commericals for Malaysia, New Zealand (featuring, unsurprisingly, "Don't Dream It's Over"), and lately, some island off the coast of South Korea, just because they remind me there's a lot of places left to visit.

3. A young Singaporean couple, very much in love, are consulting their auntie about the most fortuitous day to get married. The auntie is taking the dates they suggest and looking them up in her book of astrology. Or so it seems; actually, inside the astrology book she has a TV schedule. So for each date, she's actually looking up what's going to be on TV that day, and responds "Saturday the 6th, hmmmm, not auspicious", or "No, Friday the 12th, doesn't look good..." (because there is so much good on TV, you see). Nicely captures a lot about Singapore and their melding of the modern and the traditional.

Tioman. Last weekend Mom and Dad acquiesced to our need to getout of town, and agreed to our suggestion to go to Tioman Island, up north in Malaysia. The package we booked involved a bus ride over the border and three hours north to the coastal town of Mersing, where we would catch a ferry out to the island. Things started bad as I realized I forgot my Singapore work permit just before we boarded the bus. We decided to just go anyway and hope that the stamp in my passport would suffice. It did; we were able to leave without too much hassle.

The bus ride was a white-knuckle adventure, with a driver who didn't dawdle on the turns or let little things like no-passing zones prevent him from overtaking other vehicles. At a rest stop we spotted a pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills -- very cool. Our driver's hurry paid off as we managed to just catch our ferry out to the island. Actually, it was less of a ferry than a state's fair carnival ride; hot, cramped, bumpy, and poorly maintained. It didn't help that our driver smoked. Quite a change from our last visit here, where we had a two-story ferry with a snack bar over calm seas. Fortunately my mom had enough bonine for everyone.

Arrived two hours later ready to kiss the ground. Our rooms at the Salang Beach Resort were a little more -- shall we say 'rustic' -- than I was expecting. But they kept the rain off our heads. (Fortunately we only got a little rain.) The AC in my parents room was so loud it would have kept them awake, so they had to switch rooms. In their next room the AC was nice and quiet, but didn't blow cold air. Third room was the charm.

Did a little snorkeling, then had a nice fish dinner and drinks. That night we were woken from our slumber at 4 am by the guest in the next room who was VERY drunk and wouldn't stop trying to get in our room. (Note to self: Add "pepper spray" to travel packing list.) We eventually went down to the "police station" (a one room white bungalo) and managed to convince the guy there to put on shirt and follow us, but he didn't speak English well enough to even understand what was going on. When we got back our neighbor had gone inside his room (apparently our "We'll see how you like it in a Malaysian prison" threat struck a chord), and our barefoot officer seemed reluctant to pursue anything, or even come up off the sidewalk. He disappeared back into the night a minute later. We shrugged and went back in to try to sleep, once the adreneline wore off. We complained to the management the next morning. Others complained about this guy too, but they didn't kick him out. Instead it was our turn to switch rooms.

After a breakfast of banana pancakes (the traditional backpacker brekkie), we decided to do a little hiking. Now, we were at just about the northernmost resort on the island, so the only direction to hike was south. There are no real roads on Tioman (except for a short one near the middle); instead, there is only a footpath that skirts the edge of the island. This suffices because pretty much all the development on the island is within 100m of water, since the interior is mountainous. So we decided to just walk south to the next water-taxi stop south of us, or at least to "Monkey Beach", a supposedly nice place in between. Following the signs led us up the hills into the jungle, but we only made it a short way before deciding it was just too steep and too muddy. We were going to go on anyway until I posed the question of just how many hours we were from any sort of decent medical care, should somebody fall. I wish I had taken a picture of my retired parents scrambling down a muddy path through the jungle on a Malaysian island with their hands down in the mud.

Plan B was more snorkeling from the beach. Though the day was cloudier and the water was more choppy, it was still pretty good. My favorite sightings were several so-called "cleaning stations", which are fixed places on the reef that fish visit to have their parasites picked off by cleaner wrasses. I saw a big parrot fish even let a cleaner wrasse swim into its mouth. Also spotted were giant clams, blue and black angelfish that swam up to my fingers, file fish, nudibranches, and a clown fish and its parent in an anemone.

That night we spotted eery lights from under the water just off the beach from our huts; it was a night-diving expedition, which I don't know if we'd have the guts to try. Maybe someday. Still need to get certified first.

We were hoping for calmer seas on the return trip, but it was not to be. I think it was a bit rougher, but at least we were going with the waves this time. Still, the little kid behind me got sick, and I had to keep going to the back of the boat to splash water on my face.

The bus ride back was somewhat less intense, as there wasn't a ferry to catch. My Dad sat opposite a Malaysian guy -- Jules? -- and struck up an interesting conversation, which I only heard snippets of. The guy worked for Peace Cola, the Malaysian alternative to Coca Cola, which donates part of their proceeds to peace causes. He had lots of other interesting information about Malaysia and their relationship with Singapore, that I wish I could remember more of.

All in all, a very interesting trip. Given the difficulty of the commute, it would have been nice to spend more time, but it was still nice to get away. And hopefully we gave my parents some good stories to relate to the folks back home.

I ate lunch today at a hawker center stall that offered "Claypot Vinegar Pig's Trotter".

I opted for the red wine chicken instead.

Now it can be said: our guests were my parents, who didn't want to announce to any unfriendlies that their house was going to be unoccupied for two weeks. They've now arrived safely home. Here are some of the things we showed (or inflicted upon) them:

Sungei Buloh Nature Preserve. Our tour guide Rhea showed us many interesting things we missed on previous visits. No snakes this time, but we did see mudskippers, weaver ants, cross spiders, archer fish, and a giant monitor lizard.

Hawker centers. Not a lot of success here as we seemed to always suggest the wrong item, either too spicy or too weird, while they were already overdosing on strangeness.

Little India. On a Sunday night, when the throngs descend. Topped off with another too-spicy but tasty meal.

Tioman Island, as I mentioned before; I'll post details from this interesting side trip tonight, hopefully.

Also: Comfort food at Brewerkz on Clarke Quay. Orchard Road. The wet market and bird-singing place at Ghim Moh. Catholic Mass -- the "sign of peace" involved mostly bowing instead of handshaking. Brunch at Cellar Door. China Town. The Merlion. Games of bridge in the evenings (they're teaching us). Pricy Mexican at Margarita's.

On their own they checked out the Changi(?) Yacht Club, the Asian Civilizations Museum, Body Worlds, and Sentosa Island.

A wonderful visit! With each passing year I am more and more grateful to be able to call such wonderful and adventuresome people my parents.

Pissing down with rain on a boring Monday. For our guests' last day here, it rained. And rained. And rained. I've never seen quite this much rain here. Rainy season was supposed to be over.

While I gather my notes for the full report on our visitors, I can report on something we snuck off and did on our own last Thursday night: the David Bowie concert, at Singapore Indoor Stadium. Buying nosebleed seats paid off as didn't sell enough tickets, and closed the upper level of the stadium. So we ended up with much better seats, and even improved on them by wandering up to maybe 15 meters from stage right. (Not quite as good as seeing him from about three meters away last year in Brooklyn, but still.) Sound was pretty bad for the first half of the show until somebody plugged in a loose cord or something and the stack of speakers pointed our way turned on. David was in fine form and chatty. The set list was the tried and true formula of a familiar opening, a mix of old and new, and a finish of old favorites. Highlights for me were Five Years and I'm Afraid of Americans (which he graciously prefaced by saying was about just a few Americans that he was afraid of).

At one point I happily pointed out to Marjorie that David Bowie has no ass! This is a beacon of hope for me, that a man can not only exist but actually thrive without one.

As the show ended we bolted for the taxi stand, and were first in the queue. Of course, no taxis came by, preferring to cruise around until called (for the bonus $3 surcharge). So eventually we had to call one, as did everyone else who was waiting. While they all disappeared one by one into their summoned cabs, we waited and waited for our guy who never showed. He eventually called us but couldn't figure out how to get to where we were, and wanted us to walk around the stadium and find him. Yeah right. We ended up walking out through the now-deserted parking lots until we got out on the main road a flagged another one down. Sometimes I really miss having a car.

Lots to report, no time to report it. Got back yesterday from visiting Pulau Tioman with our out-of-town guests. It was adventuresome; stories to follow. Back to work.

It's Monday morning, and my software has gone on strike.

The program that I'm writing has suddenly decided to lay things out differently.

To modify the program, I need to check the appropriate file out of WinCVS, but WinCVS is crashing as soon as I open it.

I'm trying to upgrade it, but whenever I download a zip file using IE it comes up as an empty zip.

And to top it off, Mozilla mail is crashing every time I switch folders.

Sorry about the lack of updates... Our guests have been here since late Thursday and we've been busy running them ragged. Clarke Quay (Brewerkz), hawker centers, wet markets, Sungei Buloh nature preserve, Colbar, Cellar Door, lots of other stuff.

Still managed to sneak off and play soccer today; just a friendly intersquad game, and only enough for seven a side. Afterwards a guy on our team was giving me a lift home, and ran out of gas on the TPE (expressway). A small misadventure ensued involving some policemen and a couple of cabs. After finally getting home an hour and a half later, we took our guests to Little India for their Sunday night craziness, when the area gets inundated with young Indian men for their traditional night on the town. Had an overly spicy but very tasty meal at the [I forget the name], a subsidiary of the Apolo Banana Leaf restaurant.

I was feeling adventurous at lunch today, so I had my first ever bowl of Fish Ball Noodle. It was really quite good, and not at all fishy. Somehow they make the fish balls have the consistency and uniformity of hard-boiled egg whites. There are lots of other things that come in ball form that I'll have to try. [Insert ball joke here.]

Weekend wrap-up. Friday night: Went to see Something's Gotta Give, and enjoyed it muchly. Saturday: Grocery shopped, hung by the pool. Reminisced about "wing night", so we showered up and went to Brewerkz and got wings and (very cheap) pitchers. Yum. Sunday: Soccer game for me at Turf City; tied 2-2. Almost scored on a header, but it was our own goal. Cooked up green mole chicken with tortillas, refried bean, Mexican rice, and chips; yum again. Watched a rental DVD, "Whale Rider" about a Maori village; very good. More exciting updates as events warrant.

Addendum: Oh, and we got buzzed by our second flying lizard, right as we were walking out of our apartment complex. We chased him up a tree.

Weirdie. Until the conversation with our dinner guests last night, it never dawned on me how often Australians shorten their words. We all know they're Aussies, not Australians, and cook on barbies, not barbecue -- but they also go to unis, not universities; they're from Tazzie, not Tasmania, and they eat brekkie, not breakfast. Any others I'm forgetting?

I've also noticed a Britishism from the Brit who sometimes drives me home from soccer. The "n't" contractions are used as little as possible, in favor of combining the to be and to have verbs with the subject. So it's "we've not..." instead of "we haven't...", and "Joe's not..." instead of "Joe isn't...". That's a subtler thing. Usually, he'll drop one or two of the wackier Britishisms every trip, like something being "sixes and sevens". (I wish I had written them all down.) The other day he made a wrong turn and said, "Woops, I think I dropped a bollock here..."

On a more disappointing note, they replaced the crazy Mandarin lady's voice on the MRT line that warns you to stand behind the yellow line. Of the four languages they speak it in, hers was the only one that was replaced, so they must've had complaints.

Valentine's Day was very nice. A quiet dinner followed by (as Marjorie mentioned) a quiet evening at home with chocolate-covered strawberries, and champagne.

In other news... Goooooooaaaaaallll! Scored again today, on a decent shot from 25 yards out. Of course, it helped that the team we were playing weren't very good -- it was 4-nil at the half, and my goal made it six. At halftime our coach said he'd buy us ten pitchers later in the month if we reached 10 goals. We made it, on a penalty kick in injury time, for a final score of 10-2.

We've submitted our entry to the Metamorphosism limerick contest. Ours certainly isn't the best but at least it scans.

Lucid dreaming. Do you ever have "lucid dreams" -- the kind where you consciously know you're dreaming, and can control what goes on, at least to some extent? For a while I've been having them, mostly in the mornings in between alarm clock snoozes. There are certain things you supposedly can't do in these dreams, such as flick on and off a light switch -- apparently the part of your brain that controls what's going on can't handle the sudden change in lighting. Well, I've been particularly fascinated with trying to read in my lucid dreams. It's really strange; try "picking up a book and reading it" the next time you're lucid dreaming. Your dream-composer knows it's supposed to be filling in some sort of coherent story, but it can't do it that fast. So what you get (or at least what I get) is a string of almost random words, mostly grammatically correct, but with only just a hint of coherency. It's kind of exhilarating in a hard-to-define way.

I'm trying to figure out how to transcribe some of what my sleep-brain is composing. Sometimes it can go on for paragraph after paragraph, but whenever I try to hard to remember some of it, I pop back into consciousness with only the last few words in my memory.

Bike. I bought a bike today. It's a cheap little mountain bike, and I do mean cheap and little. Got it for S$35 (about US$20), and it's too small for me, but for the price, how could I say no? Basic transportation is a good thing.

It's been a couple of years since I've ridden a bicycle, but it turns out, it's just like riding a bicycle.

A walk on slippery rocks. Forgive my longwindedness tonight. I've decided to start trying to write more.

Tonight's subject is philosophy. No need to run screaming; I'm not going to share any of my personal opinions on the matter with you. I'm just going to talk about philosophy in general.

A while back I had a friend of a friend who was always cold to me, and I never knew why. Years later, I found out the answer. I turns out that when we first met, I found out she was a philosophy major in school, and apparently gave her a lot of grief about it. Now, I have no recollection of this happening. But it sounds like me. I've always thought philosophy to be a soft, and stupid, major. (Part of me was sorry, but another part thought, what philosophy is it that holds a grudge for three years? Don't you people debate a lot?)

Not that I think the subject is unimportant. Some days, it's all I think about. But in the field of philosophy, there seems to be no attempt to winnow out the truth. There's an old joke:

A university dean, facing a budget crisis, decided to chide the head of the physics department. "Why do you need all this equipment for experiments?" he said. "Why can't you be more like the math department? All they need is paper, pencils, and a wastebasket. Or better still, be like the philosophy department. They don't even need the wastebasket!

It's true, philosophy never throws anything away. Take any philosophy course, and you'll be taught mutually exclusive, even highly contradictory philosophies. Some may even be flatly disproven. And yet, they Must Be Taught. I think if a university professor ever tried to espouse a specific philosophy to students, and taught that this or that other philosophy is a complete failure (or worse, neglected to even teach it), they'd ride him or her out of there on a rail.

I've had people try to give me philosophy books to read. I've developed a nice system for dealing with them. The books usually consist of a logical form of argument -- state assumptions, draw inferences, reach conclusion -- and I can at least credit them for that. Usually. But I always see the whole thing as a big shaky tower, built up from the axioms. As such, I usually only read until I reach what I perceive is the first faulty inference. Then I think, if they're just going to build on this, why should I read on? The tower already will not stand. (Not that I could do any better. The small towers I have built for myself have failed to achieve any great unity or height.)

And usually I find that the conclusions these philosophers come to are the ones they were already convinced of before they started their formulating. Their ideas are always a product of their time and place. Like, Ayn Rand escapes communist Russia, becomes a fervent capitalist, then formulates a philosophy. Starting at first principles, she builds and builds upon them until she arrives at -- capitalism! What a surprise!

Okay, I'll say it. I'm basically an existentialist without the angst. If I even understand the term correctly.

I'm mostly through with Albert Camus' The Plague, which got me thinking on these lines. Obligatory quote:

But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

"Me" shirts. You never notice them until they're pointed out to you, then you notice them everywhere. Singaporeans are crazy, it seems, about "me" shirts. That might not be their official name, but I don't know what else you could call them. These are just t-shirts, almost always black, that have some familiar graphic printed on the front, with the word "me" replacing some part. For instance, one of the more common ones is a chessboard showing a partially played game, with one of the squares showing "me" instead of a piece. Other examples include: a maze, with "me" trapped somewhere inside. An eye chart, with one of the "E" letters replaced by "me". A Pac-Man screen, with "me" running around the maze. The I-Ching symbols, with one replaced by "me".

There are at least twenty varieties I've seen. I'm not even quite sure what they mean, though I expect they don't mean anything in particular, except "my life is complicated" or something like that. I have no idea where they sell them -- I know one place that sells the white "Pac-Man" version, but that's it. It's a mystery.

Why our lunch break today was more interesting than yours. We went and saw the procession for the Thaipusam festival. Scroll down for pictures of this amazing event. Now that's devotion.

I have a particularly stupid prejudice where I only expect Western religions to keep up with modern technology. It's hard to imagine the temple that organizes such a festival to have a website, but here it is. Check out their guidelines for devotees.

I'm amazed. I never thought it had a chance of happening. But it appears the Pixies are reuniting.

When asked whether the reunion tour was strictly a money-making venture, front man Frank Black responded "Ha! No! No, my child, this is not my desire." Seriously, I don't care if it is. I just hope they head out this way. A lot of Singaporeans have been clamoring for a Pixies reunion.

No, wait, I'm thinking of Air Supply.

I kid! I kid!

There's a new restaurant within walking distance from us that I've become obsessed with trying. It's called Midnight Curry, and it's only open from midnight until 8 am. Such an eatery might not be out of place in Manhattan, but it sits in a quiet, staid little corner of a conservative town, and there's next to nothing in its immediate area (Clementi and Ulu Pandan). I can't figure out who they cater to, so I am intrigued. Curry after midnight sounds like a recipe for scary dreams though.

For the last month I've been hounded relentlessly by
journalists and fans alike, all wanting to know "Where is your
Top Albums of 2003 list?" Well, you can all stop harassing me
now. The delay was caused by several new albums I got over
Christmas that I wanted to give a chance to sink in before I
ranked them. There's almost nothing novel in this year's list;
mostly just new albums by bands I already liked. In the internet
age, I can hardly blame the musical pit that is Singapore for my
lack of finding anything novel. And so it goes:

10. Turin Brakes, "The Optimist LP". Marjorie latched onto this
one more than I did, but it's pretty solid acoustic rock,
with good harmonizing. Rating: 6.

9. Death Cab For Cutie, "Transatlanticism". Marjorie has also
been playing this one a lot. It's a quality effort. The acoustic
ballad (need to look up title) is one of my favorite songs
this year. Rating: 7.

8. Frank Black, "Show Me Your Tears". More of the same from Frank.
That's a good thing. When bands break up or artists die, you
always end up wishing they had produced more output. Hard to
complain about Frank, who's been averaging a couple of albums
a year. Rating: 8.

7. Quasi, "Hot Sh*t". A somewhat new direction; they've pretty
much abandoned their signature fuzzy organ sound. Lots of
good songs here. Rating: 8.

6. Joe Strummer, "Streetcore". The world has been robbed of Joe's
enormous talent, just one year ago. I still feel bitter and
poignant when I listen to this album, which might be keeping
me from enjoying it more. I don't think this album ranks
up there with his previous two, but you still feel (more than
hear) Joe's greatness shine through, often. No one else could
cover "Redemption Song" and get away with it, I think. Rating: 8.

5. Radiohead, "Hail To The Thief". There's so much expectation
built into every new Radiohead album, like each has the
potential to bring the world crashing down. And so, there's
always a letdown when you first hear it. But, I pulled this
one out again recently, and tried to listen to it like it
was some new band I'd never heard of before, and you know?
It's a damn fine piece of work. Rating: 8.5.

4. Rufus Wainwright, "Want One". Rufus's "Poses" was my album of
the year a few years back. "Want One" seems, paradoxically,
both more stripped down and more full of big, crashing
symphonic lushness. Very satisfying. Rating: 9.

3. Fountains of Wayne, "Welcome Interstate Managers". Glad to see
these guys finally getting the recognition they deserve.
A great, fun pop album. I so wish these guys would take
themselves more seriously, though. Rating: 9.

2. White Stripes, "Elephant". Proving their debut album "White
Blood Cells" was no fluke. Jack White is a hugely gifted
guitar player, singer, and songwriter. Despite the punk
stylings and attitude, this album just seems joyful to me.
Rating: 9.

And Mark's number one album for the year...

1. Nothing. I looked back on my favorite albums of the previous
few years, and decided there's nothing I've heard this year that
deserved to be included in this pantheon. Let's hope for better
stuff in the coming year.

The new Birkenstock, now with a sole that's molded to fit your... Well, it's just molded. This is what happens when it rains for five days straight. Marjorie put up a brave fight with the Lysol, but Mother Nature won in the end.

Equatorial living. Two tidbits about living close to the equator that I bet you didn't know. If I hadn't read about them, I would have never noticed, myself.

The moon appears to flip completely upside down in the process of going from one horizon to the other.

Sunsets and sunrises happen faster than they do at other latitudes, as the sun rises and sets pretty much vertically.

That's all Mr. Wizard has for you today. Remember, kids, sleep with your hands above the covers.

Comments, yay! I've switched services, so you should be able to comment now, if you haven't already moved along to newer, more user friendly blogs. Go ahead. See if I care.

Trip report, a few days late:

Just flew in from Bangkok, and boy are my arms loose and relaxed, kneaded into a doughlike consistency. We took a last minute escape on the weekend of Chinese New Year. A quick trip report:

Friday night: we arrive, and spend ten minutes head-scratching as to how to get into town, and bemoaning our lack of preparedness. Finally we just get in the taxi queue and ride into town without much fuss. No seatbelts, fast driver. The town smells of exhaust. We check in (Windsor Hotel) and discover to our chagrin that the door to the adjoining room is paper thin. A woman is chattering away in Thai (we presume). We go for a walk in hopes that things quiet down. Spot a very interesting small bat, not much bigger than a moth, and not flying much faster than one either, circling the lights of the adjoining hotel. Streets are dirty and smelly, but seemingly safe enough. Walk a few blocks, come home to quiet in the room. Our beds are ungodly hard, and that includes the pillows.

Saturday: Get up late. I point out to Marjorie that the world is now officially our oyster. YA GET IT? Make a run for the Grand Palace. We stop for Marjorie's required Starbucks at a nice, new, upscale mall by the Sky Train station. Take the Sky Train to the river's edge, where we hope to catch river taxi. Decide to have lunch instead. Eat lousy food at a Hot Pot restaurant: cold dim sum, average pork and duck with rice. Realize that we aren't going to have enough time to do the Grand Palace proper (it closes early), so we get back on Sky Train and go to Bangkok's famous market, off the Mo Chit station. Made the obligatory pun with that name. Among countless other things, numerous animals were for sale: puppies, kittens, rabbits, hamsters, miniature squirrels, GIANT fish. One food hawker was selling the following items, all deep fried:

Crickets

Grasshoppers

Water bugs (look like giant roaches)

Grubs

Fetal -- chickens, I guess? Some sort of baby bird, whole.
Sky Train back to Siam station area. Walk by Jim Thompson's House. Area overrun with students in either a red shirt or pink, rival fans attending a local soccer game. Beer at the Dallas Pub. Foot massage next door -- ohhh, migod that's good. Marjorie wonders why she was reluctant at my initial suggestion. We bliss out, for 200 baht each ($8 Sing, about $5 US for an hour). Back to our hotel area (Sukhumvit). Decent German food at Otto Bei across from our hotel -- Marjorie: some sort of schnitzel, me: Jager Schnitzel (pork) mit Spaetzle, my favorite dish. It's okay, but half the mushrooms in the sauce are shitake. Hand and arm massage up the street. At this point we are counting time and money in terms of the amount of equivalent massage. This time is was a half an hour for 100 baht. Back to our severe beds.

Sunday: Determined to get an earlier start, we are out the door by about 11am. Sky Train again to river. We board a river taxi without much fuss and ride upriver surrounded by locals, including monks in full robes. At only 20 baht, this is the way to travel. Pass several other wats on the way. Disembark by the palace. It's closed lunchtime, so we buy some satay from a street hawker (me: marinated chicken, marjorie: chicken wings on a skewer). Walk down to neighboring Wat Po; impressive tiled temple complex featuring one of the world's largest reclining Buddha statues. On to Grand Palace. We were both secretly expecting it to be overly gaudy or ostentatious, but we were both quite impressed. You would know you're a king if you lived here. Eat expensive Haagen Dazs at their snack shop (Marjorie: 1 scoop coffee, 1 macadamia nut; me: 2 scoops macadamia brittle). On river taxi back to Sky Train station, chat with American tourist from California who just got back from a month in Burma. Overhear another pointing out a high rise apartment building that has never been occupied, and we can see why: it is leaning like it's from Pisa. We plan to just go hang out in Lumpini Park, but get sidetracked by some stores and finally decide that it's "massage o'clock". Perhaps even "half past massage o'clock". Back to our hotel area, we opt for hour-and-a-half Thai massage. I love it; Marjorie afterward feels like she's been pistol-whipped. Bad massage is worse than no massage. We shower, then Thai food dinner across the street at Saw Sam Sai. Drinks at a pub up the street, which turned out to be right in front of a "lady-boy" cabaret. The crowd and performers spill out after a while, and we learn from our bartender that they make most of their money posing for pictures with tourists. I snap a picture from a distance.

Monday: After check out we scramble to find ATM so we have cash to pay the 500 baht airport departure fee. Sandwiches at German deli across street. Wait (forever) for Airport Bus. Pet mangy, lame (but collared) dog while we wait. Arrive early at airport, get through customs without fuss. Two hours in plane and we are back.

You'd be surprised how many people from Singapore count on side trips to places like Bangkok just for a bit of seediness and chaos. And, conversely, how many people from places like Bangkok occasionally need to come to Singapore for a little peace, safety, and order. It would make an interesting human-nature study. Our trip was not exhaustive or exhausting (however exhaust-filled), but it was deeply satisfying. Bangkok is dynamic; the people are exceedingly friendly, the touts take "no" for an answer, and there are a wealth of places begging to be explored. Fun.

Other points of interest -- American franchises spotted: McD's, Pizza Hut/KFC (sans the Taco Bell), Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, Swensen's, and a 7-Eleven on every corner. "Rancid" T-shirts spotted: 4.

Comments seem to be broken. Am looking into the problem.

Wednesday night we attended the Wednesday Night Drinking Club, which is often touted on the Expat Singapore message forums. Over expensive beers at Liberte in Chijmes, we chatted with people from Germany, Netherlands, Indonesia, and the UK, and also an American, Ken, who was in town interviewing at Singapore's world-famous Zoo and Night Safari. He invited us out for a free night at the Night Safari, so that's what we did last night. They must really want him to work there, because we were given the VIP treatment; we were escorted to the front of every line, on one of their busiest nights of the year. Ken's a great guy, and we got lots of behind-the-scenes insights on the workings of zoos. I hope he decides to come work here.

Every zoo visit is a unique experience; you never know which animals will be active, or what they'll be doing. This time we had great views of the tarsiers, tapirs, and flying foxes.

Chiromancy. Up early today to go get our fingerprints done, or redone in Marjorie's case. We now have some on the official FBI card -- which we printed out ourselves, so who knows if that will be accepted -- and some on official Singapore forms. For our Singaporean we-haven't-been-arrested-here form, they had a cool digital scanner that read our fingerprints electronically. This part they happily do for free, no doubt so they can have our fingerprints on record.

Brian McBride will now be playing for Fulham, so I'll get to watch him on the telly occasionally. The English Premier League is starting to dip into the American well, not just for the talent, I'm sure, but for the potential market of new fans. Hey, it works. Go Fulham!

Chinatown, where I work, is all festive in anticipation of the year of the Monkey. I must've seen a dozen people today carrying pussy willows, which are a favorite to decorate with. Don't make jokes, but pussy willows are my favorite decorative plant. I mean, don't laugh just because I have a favorite decorative plant. What did you think I meant? We're going to get some of them, and an orange plant, like last year. Red lanterns and cards everywhere.

Turn your head and cough, lah. Today we went together to a medical clinic to get our official health exam for Australia. Eye exam, blood test, chest x-ray, the works -- even, no lie, checking our arms for heroin-use track marks. I had to wonder about the place. The first check they performed was a urine test -- Marjorie got a cup, and I got a little litmus-test swizzle stick. And we were told that the restroom was down the hall, past all the other offices on the fifteenth floor of this office building. So we went, and went, and carried our prizes back past the accountant's office and whatever else. The receptionist just needed a visual confirmation on my pee-stick, so I held it out for her over the reception desk, and she said okay, you can throw it out over there, in the tiny step-to-open trash can in the waiting room, right next to another waiting patient.

The rest of the exam went okay, I guess, except for the doctor having to play stabby-stab-stab with my arm trying to hit the vein. She asked if I exercised a lot, because my blood pressure and pulse were low, so I guess that's good. They do need to get confirmation as to the state of my kidney stones, though, so I need to go try to take of that tomorrow. Nothing about this process ever seems to get taken care of on the first pass.

Bowie fish. Two years ago when we were visiting here we visited Singapore's aquarium, Underwater World. Today we went back, and we arrived at the same consensus: it's too small and overpriced. Alas.

However, while we were out we saw in the newspaper that David Bowie is coming to town in March! So we went and got our tickets already. It can't possibly rival our last time seeing him (in a 1000 seat venue in Brooklyn), but we can't complain too much!

A great read. I read a lot, but not much of what I read do I feel the need to praise here. But I just finished The First American: The Life And Times of Benjamin Franklin, and wow. Putting aside what an extraordinary character he was, this biography was also the first really readable explanation of the factors leading up to the Revolutionary War. And Ben himself -- well, everything he touched, he transformed, it seems; his CV would be the most staggering in history, I think. Truly a Renaissance man. Hard to read without feeling like a worthless sack of shit. But I recommend giving it a shot.

Blogging live. About ten minutes ago, I heard a crunch, like a fender-bender, outside my second-floor work window. I looked down to see a young man lying on the road, motionless, next to a white van. He had just been hit, apparently, but there has been no blood. He eventually was helped up (despite my yells to not move him), and now an ambulance is here. (The ambulance siren as it approached is the first siren I've heard here.) It got here in less than ten minutes, and had the guy out of here in about another five. The victim had blood around one eyebrow, was all that I saw. He was awake and alert on the stretcher. The police are now trying to reconstruct the scene with the help of witnesses. They chalked the street to mark the position of the tires and moved the van away. Half an hour later. The police have called in the situation and are presumably waiting for advisement. The driver of the van, a pony-tailed man of about thirty-five, calmy waits. He seems unphased.

I could have been the first to dial 999. I should have been. Luckily the guy seemed to be okay.

Celeb spotting, Singapore stylee! After a morning matinee of Good Bye, Lenin! (which was just okay), we went to the grocery store, and happened to spot Singapore's biggest celebrity, Gurmit Singh, AKA Phua Chu Kang. He was easy to recognize, even without his trademark big, ugly mole, since he's been in just about every sitcom this country has ever produced. If you saw the Amazing Race episode where they came through Singapore, he was the guy in the apartment that everyone had to go meet.

Today's new symptoms: tactile sensitivity (like, my skin is very sensitive), sore throat, and loss of apetite.

I brought my X-Arcade joystick back from the states (yay!) but it doesn't seem to work with my laptop (boo!). I do have MAME (the arcade game emulator) now loaded, and found a site from which I grabbed over 1000 old arcade games, but they only play from the keyboard as yet. I must figure this out.

Illin'. I managed a whole five hours of sleep last night, 11pm to 4am. Who knows why, but jet lag hounds the return traveler much worse than the departing one. And now, I think I'm getting sick. When you get a chill at midday while out walking in the Singapore sun in a long sleeve shirt, something is definitely wrong.

New pictures from other planets will always get a nod on this blog while I have any say so. I don't know how guys can work on those projects -- sixty percent of the Mars probes we've sent have failed. Can you imagine working years on something like that, all to have it disappear (and usually without any explanation)? I would have nightmares.

Home. Just flew in from L.A., and why am I not more tired? For the record, fifteen and a half hours to Hong Kong (ulp), then a layover where we got five minutes rest, then another three and a half hours to S'pore. That sounds like a long time, but we must be used to it or something; I don't know why, but it didn't seem that bad. Marjorie slept a good nine hours of the first flight, while I got a good fifteen minutes or so. I'm functioning purely on sunlight, jetlag, and Sudafed right now.

LAX was a madhouse, even worse than last time, and not without drama -- I got called out by an airport worker for cutting in on a line that I didn't cut in on. Luckily the people ahead of us in line vouched for me.

We brought a serious load of CDs, DVDs, and consumables back with us. Stuff. We like stuff.

Oh, Griffith Park was awful. In the old sense of the word -- full of awe. Our hiking trail took us up to the summit of a lookout with a 360 degree view, looking out over the entire sprawl of L.A. and the ocean in one direction, and the mountains in the other. Rain the previous day kept smog to a minimum, and the day was sunny as we could have hoped. Just stunning. Pictures to follow.

Celeb spotting -- we ran into Gary Jules, who's a former neighbor of Marjorie's friend in L.A. He's recently famous for his cover of Mad World that was the number one song in UK over the holidays. If you saw Love Actually, you'll understand why there's a particular emphasis this year on being number one in the UK for Xmas. The song was used in the movie Donnie Darko.

The Atlanta visit was most agreeable, if not exactly relaxing. Took care of a lot of the business that needed to be taken care of after being away so long, and saw old friends and haunts. New Year's we went to our friends Rob and Ally's house for a party with the old Posse.

In Los Angeles now for one day before we fly back. Yesterday driving around we saw the restaurant where the begin and end of Pulp Fiction was filmed, and later took a drive up and around Mulholland Drive, with its amazing view out into the valley.

While driving I spotted a car with the license plate "IMBJORK". Driving it was a smirking woman who looked something like Bjork. But I'm not sure. Having seen the footage of her taking down a paparazzi in an airport, I can't imagine the real Bjork wants to advertise.

Today we're going to hike in Griffith Park, where much of Short Cuts was filmed.

Depressingly, it occurred to me last night that this is now the year of my 20th high school reunion. Sigh.

Our day. Mailed off Australia paperwork (aah). Tried to get fingerprinted. To the bank: deposited checks, fixed ATM card. Lunch at Eats. Looked at $230 glasses -- just the frames -- at Pearle Vision. Bought $30 frames at Stefan's in Little Five Points. (We each bought frames. They are identical. What are the odds? We are now officially Twinkies.) Blew $100 on CDs at Criminal Records. Had lenses put in our new glasses. Dinner at Ma Li with Marjorie's parents -- their Pik King Pork may be my favorite meal anywhere. On to the Thrashers game -- we lost, 2-1, to the Canadiens. Hockey is such a great sport. Grocery shopping -- stocked up on things to take home (cold meds, Mexican rice, Shake and Bake). Night night!

On our last full day with my parents, we tooled around the area a bit, looking at wildlife and such. First stop was the Enchanted Forest Nature Sanctuary; then a drive north to Ponce Inlet, near New Smyrna Beach. We saw alligators, gulls, shrikes, tortoises, kingfishers, armadillos -- it's a neat area where they live, definitely.

We're up in Atlanta now with Marjorie's parents; we're about to head off to Nuevo Laredo for some din. Yum. Lots of work to do here tomorrow, which we're trying to forget for the evening...

So, what's weird about being back in the US?

Currency. There's a thing I (and many others, apparently) do when visiting a new country and trying to buy things, which is to just hand the cashier the smallest bill that will cover the cost, instead of trying to figure out the small change and such. Sadly, I've reverted to doing just that back in the US, since the currency denominations here are different than the ones I'm now used to S'pore.

Handing the cashier money. It's like, I've forgotten whether there's a proper way to do it, like there is in Asia (two hands). There isn't really a proper way here, but I still feel self concious doing it.

Malls. Lots of Americans running around here. It just seems kind of surreal.
A year is too long to go, not seeing your family anyway. Yesterday for Christmas Marjorie & I took a walk down to the ocean with my parents, and in the evening had our second bridge lesson. It's a game I think we're going to like a lot; most interesting. We also rented Donnie Darko, which the clerk at Blockbuster said was her "favorite movie ever!". I should have told her that it's a Christmas tradition for us.

The Petri dish. In Cocoa Beach now at the parents. My sister was down with her kids, who all had the flu; I only saw her for a few minutes, as she was laid up in her bedroom sleeping it off and quarantining herself. My brother and sister-in-law and their kids were down too; so the household was quite festive (and hectic). Got lots of goodies. Everybody's gone now except myself, Marjorie, and my parents. Ahhh, quiet. We're going to get them to teach us bridge tonight.

But what I really want to do is direct. We had a super time out in L.A. last night with our friends Michael and Kristina, who took us down to Santa Monica for dinner and shopping and then on to two house parties and a warehouse party. Met lots of fabulous people and (amazingly) stayed out until 3 pm or so, operating on two hours of sleep. Today we're off to the farmer's market for lunch then on to do some shopping. Might go see "Lost In Translation" tonight, which I'm really looking forward to.

USA bound! Tomorrow we head off back to the states. What great changes have occurred since we left? Will we see flying cars, moving sidewalks, microwave popcorn that doesn't burn? Watch this space for a full report.

On the plane I plan to write a program that will "screen scrape" all our old blogs into a single document, for archiving purposes. It will snip off all the title and sidebar information from each page, and automatically pull in all comments, pictures, and, if I'm ambitious enough, external web pages that our blog entries link to. I'm bitter that some of our old comments seem to have gone missing from the old comment site, just as of this week. I should have written this program a long time ago.

Duran Duran's all fun and stuff, until "Wild Boys" is stuck in your head for two days.

At the concert last night Marjorie mentioned how she thought it was great that Singaporeans could love something with unbridled enthusiasm. It's true. When there is no guilt, there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure; it's just pleasure. They aren't so much unhip here as anti-hip, at least in the music realm. In a society this multi-cultural, no one's going to tease you for liking Chinese opera, Bollywood soundtracks, or Duran Duran (which is who we saw last night). And so enthusiasm thrives here like a tropical plant.

It's unfortunate, though, that hipness seems to be a necessary ingredient to being a music producer, as opposed to a music consumer. Lacking ego, no one ever sees a show and says, "I could do better". Maybe we should go tease people more.

The Ultimate Geek Gift. If I were just a little bit more of a geek, all my nephews and nieces would be receiving this.

Singapore travel warning: when starting a fight, Singaporeans lead with the foot. An argument broke out in the parking lot underneath my office window today, culminating in an attempted kick at the other guy's kneecaps. Which missed. It broke up immediately; nobody wanted to go to jail, I'm sure. This is the second fight I've seen in Singapore, and both times the aggressor started with a kick.

What happened to the damn comments? If they're gone for good I will be most unhappy.

Bah, humbug. Christmas's opening act is a month made of Mondays. Serving suggestion: garnish with head cold. "Most wonderful time of the year", my shiny white ass.

Human jerky. Today was for visiting Body Worlds: The Anatomical Exhibition of the Human Body. It was really, really interesting. The bodies are actual human volunteers, "plasticized". Different displays showed the muscles, the nervous system, the circulatory system, the digestive system, and the reproductive system (snigger snigger). Sometimes the organs were left intact; sometimes they were shown in cross-section. And they had many examples of unhealthy organs next to healthy ones. (The coal miner's lung looked like a lump of coal.) Most fascinating, and disturbing, was the cross-section of the pregnant woman. An interesting and edumacational excursion; highly recommended.

Tonight we are planning on our first visit to Zouk, Singapore's biggest and most famous discotheque, with our out-of-town friends. I don't know if we'll be drinking, though, after seeing the liver with cirrhosis earlier.

Friends good. Our Atlanta friend Ashim (and his wife, son, and mother) are passing through town. We did dinner with them last night at Boat Quay and are going out on the town with them tonight. Woop!